Figure - available from: Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory
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The Casa de Piedra Roselló 3 cave. A Lateral view of the cave entrance. B View of the bedrock inside the cave. Note the rough rock topography, the presence of reddish patinas, the widespread distribution of white biofilms and sectors with live mosses, particularly where water percolation through fissures is observed. Examples of highly weathered C red and D white paintings from this site
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This work aims discussing the contribution of environmental and technological factors in rock art painting preservation, based on a 3-year experimental program and two archaeological cases from Patagonia (South America). Concerning technological factors, microscopic information of experimental and archaeological contexts indicate that fine-grained...
Citations
... Over the past five decades, experimental archaeology has proved to be an invaluable tool in testing hypotheses concerning the production of rock art paintings (e.g. , Couraud 1988;Paunero 1992;Blanco and Barreto 2016;d'Errico et al. 2016;López-Montalvo 2017;Landino et al. 2023;Ozán et al. 2023;Santos da Rosa et al. 2023) and engravings (e.g. Bard and Busby 1974;Bednarik 1998;Keyser and Rabiega 1999;Álvarez and Fiore 1995;Álvarez et al. 2001;Santos da Rosa 2012;Santos da Rosa et al. 2014;Vergara and Troncoso 2015;Zotkina and Davydov 2022) in sites from diverse chronological periods and geographic areas. ...
For over a century, scholars have presented several proposals regarding the paint application tools used to create Levantine rock art. However, such proposals have largely rested on theoretical assumptions and inductive inferences that have not been rigorously tested. In this experimental investigation, we compiled these hypotheses and crafted 60 tools that were tested through systematic experiments to assess their performance and technical affordances for the creation of images with techno-visual features equivalent to those of the Levantine paintings. These experiments allowed us to obtain analytical parameters with independent validation, which were used as diagnostic criteria to analyse the rock art from nine sites located in eastern Spain. Results reveal that out of 60 tools, only 10 –five hair brushes, three plant brushes, and two feather brushes–afforded the production of images with techno-visual features highly similar to those of the archaeological paintings. Subsequently, we employed these tools to paint 10 full-size replicas of Levantine motifs, aiming to explore their potential role in the toolkit of prehistoric painters. Drawing on the data from both the systematic and the replicative experiments, and taking into account the level of labour investment required by the technical operations that permeate the production of the paint application tools, we suggest that Levantine technology was not based on an economic logic aimed at minimizing the costs associated with producing the images, but rather on a perspective where the priority was creating paintings with specific techno-visual qualities that reinforced the information transmitted through the graphic code.
The use of clay for symbolic or ritual activities can be confidently traced back to the Palaeolithic. One of the earliest documented examples is the presence of clay-based paintings at European Upper Palaeolithic cave sites. However, references to such artworks are scarce, and almost no attention has been given to the study of their technical and graphic characteristics. The recent discovery of Cova Dones (Spain), which contains nearly a hundred clay-painted motifs, has enabled us to analyse previously unexplored aspects of this rock art. In this article, we reconstruct the chaîne opératoire of these motifs and establish a typology of their various states based on taphonomic alterations. Our aim is to compile, define, and present a series of evidence that can be identified as Palaeolithic clay paintings or associated with different phases of their chaîne opératoire based on the rich graphic record of Cova Dones. This catalogue is intended to assist archaeologists in identifying this type of evidence in other cave sites.
The rock art of Aldea Beleiro (SW Chubut, Argentine Patagonia) stands out for the remarkable consistency in the use of red shades, particularly in the motifs of the multi-site Casa de Piedra de Roselló. These motifs, attributed by relative chronology to different moments of the Holocene, present a striking chromatic continuity that challenges the distinction between change and persistence in paint production over a long human occupation sequence (ca. 10,000 years BP). To address this issue, this study employs a multi-analytical approach—combining SEM-EDS, Raman micro-spectroscopy, and FTIR micro-spectroscopy—to differentiate between red pigments at a chemical level. Our findings suggest that, despite the apparent homogeneity in color, the underlying chemical composition reveals a diverse range of paint preparation techniques, even within motifs of similar chronology. This variability highlights the complexity of paint production processes and underscores the need for further research to better understand the methods and choices involved in pigment management for rock art painting.
Rock surface alterations due to weathering have often been used by archaeologists for creating chronologies, studying climatic conditions, and authenticating artifacts. Rock surface alterations are also important for identifying recycled artifacts through the presence of “double patina.” In the surface archaeological deposits at Semizbugu (Saryarqa, Kazakhstan), rock surface weathering stages are used to chronologically categorize stone tool artifacts based on perceived associations between weathering characteristics and typology. Despite a long history of studying rock surface weathering in geological sciences, the formation of rock coatings on stone tool artifacts is a largely misunderstood process due to its complexity and multi-factored formation process. Given the consistent use of one raw material at Semizbugu, we test for differences in rock coating morphologies, elemental composition, and surface roughness between macroscopically identified weathering stages. Based on our analyses, we identify multiple processes involved in artifact weathering at Semizbugu. We suggest that artifacts at Semizbugu may be relatively chronologically ordered based on a combined assessment of decreased surface roughness and increased surface pitting, both of which are likely related to degree of wind abrasion and dissolution of the artifact surface. We also recommend against using rock varnish color for chronological assessment of artifacts at Semizbugu given the destructive effects of abrasion and the irregularities of varnish formation in semi-arid contexts. Additionally, we suggest this model be validated with rock surface exposure dating via optically stimulated luminescence (OSL-surf). Furthermore, rock surface exposure OSL dating could give us insight into the time-depth between use and recycling events in a more meaningful way than trying to compare differential artifact surface weathering across “double patina.”
